Question: A sunflower had $97$ seeds. A strong gust of wind comes along and blows $49$ seeds off of the sunflower. How many of the seeds remain on the sunflower?
We start with the total number of $97}$ seeds and subtract the ${49}$ seeds that blew off. $97$ $49$ $?$ Total sunflower seeds Seeds that flew away Seeds left $97} - {49} = {\square}$ Let's subtract to find how many seeds are left. $$ $$ $$ $$ $$ $$ $$ $$ $$ $$ $$ $97}-{49}= {48}$ ${48}$ seeds remain on the sunflower.